A Wild, Wormy West
by Rhydeble
Summary: Sophia Hess is the fastest gun West of the Mississipi. Fighting her way through bandits, angry natives, powerful Cloaks, and the dastardly trainrobbing Undersiders, she comes to term with her own aggression, and eventually has to deal with a plot that goes far beyond just the small frontier town of Brockton Gulch.
1. Chapter 1: The Legend Begins

**Chapter 1: The Legend Begins.**

Sophia crested the top of the hill, wiping the dust from her face, and finally removing her kerchief. As her loyal steed reached the top, they finally came out of the unending sea of dust and sand. Knowing that she'd passed through the most dangerous part of her journey, -the sea of sands was known for containing bandits, Indians, deadly predators, scorpions, and rattlesnakes, as well as very little water,- she took a minute to catch her breath. It had been dangerous, but it had also been the only way to reach her destination in time.

Before her, in a valley that looked almost lush in comparison, lay the small frontier town where they were expecting her delivery.

Brockton Gulch was a town like any other. It had a grocer, a barber, a bank, a Sheriff and a saloon. There was a school, an undertaker, a weaponsmith, and most importantly right now, a doctor with a desperate lack of supplies.

Almost subconsciously, her hand checked the saddlebag in which the expensive and life-saving package had been stored. Satisfied, she pressed her legs into Jumper's flanks.

"C'mon boy, just a little further," she told him. Not that it had been necessary. Jumper had already seen the buildings, and he knew that buildings meant food, water, and rest. Her horse, a fast and agile steed, mostly white, with a mane the color of straw, started walking, swinging his head around happily.

In the valley before her, she could see the life-blood of Brockton Gulch. Fields of grass filled with cattle, a small mine in the side of the hill and a few burgeoning tradesmen's shops. If everything went well for the town, it would quickly start growing, attract more and more people, and hopefully become an oasis of civilization in an ocean of lawlessness. If things went bad for the town, it could be transformed into a den of debauchery and villainy, with people paid in lead rather than gold.

After a short while, she entered the outskirts of the town. The people were skittish, and none of them greeted her. There were no children asking for news, or business-savvy men smelling an opportunity. Instead, the people kept to themselves. Sophia kept her hand near her revolver. Things weren't bad, not yet, but given the general mood of the time, that could quickly change.

Entering the main road, a thing called Lord's Street going by the signs, and also the only real road in town, she followed the scent of her nose, leading to the local saloon, a place called Ugly Bob's Watering Hole.

Her journey here, which had promised to be dangerous, had been remarkably peaceful, and as the fastest gun this side of the Mississippi, Sophia was getting bored. Last she heard, the Undersiders had escaped prison once again. Thus, when she passed the local bank, she almost expected them to run out of the front door, still wearing their prison uniforms, with bags of loot carried by Rachel's dogs. The Quadrumvirate -a group of four notable people, she knew,- of villains was ridiculously tenacious, and through some strange twist of fate, she always seemed to run into them. Which wasn't all that big of a problem, if Brian,'The Grue', didn't have such a ridiculously bothersome ability. The cloak was basically a perfect counter to her own, and without vision, her marksmanship wasn't all that useful either.

Right next to the bank, she located the doctor's office. Spotting an opportunity to offload her cargo, she activated her ability, and her body turned into a living shadow, flowing straight through Jumper. In that state, she looked like she was made of gas, but she could move through walls just as easily as she could through chain-link fences. Then, standing on the ground, she approached the office while freaked out townsfolk behind her oo-ed and aa-ed.

She knocked on the thick wooden planks of the door of the doctor's office. An iron staff of Asclepius adorned the door, and the grain of the wood was clearly visible through flaking paint. Business wasn't going all that well. That was strange, she thought. Several of the people she'd passed on the streets had had small wounds. Did they lack the money to afford the doctor's prices? Was the doctor incompetent? Or was the medicine supply truly that low? She waited impatiently, tapping her heels on the raised wooden veranda before the door. When she thought she'd waited for long enough, she called out, hoping the physician would reply.

"Anybody there? I have a delivery!" she said, the sound of her voice going unanswered. Then, as she was thinking about simply floating through the door, or knocking even harder than before, Jumper walked up beside her. The horse pressed his nose against an old piece of paper hanging from a nail beside the door.

-Closed-, the impromptu sign said, telling her that she wouldn't find the doctor here. She turned around, giving Jumper a pat on the head before leading him by the reins, and walked on towards the saloon. Ugly Bob's Watering Hole was marked by a sign with a picture of a bun of bread, cut in half, with meat, tomato and greeneries stuffed between the halves. As she walked up to the door, she took her package from the saddlebags and allowed Jumper to take up a position at the water trough, where he got himself ready to fill his belly with some much-needed moisture.

The saloon, just like all other saloons, had a set of double doors on creaking hinges, allowing visitors to see inside before entering. Sophia entered, the doors swinging closed behind her, and took off her hat.

As she entered, the saloon almost immediately went silent. Head turned, and several heavy-set, muscled and armed men looked at her with suspicion. She ignored it, instead opting to take a look around the main room. There was a set of stairs to the first floor, which had a balcony that overlooked the main room with several chairs and tables. On the right stood the bar, with several tall chairs in front of it, and an impressive array of different drinks behind it. Whenever situations were bad, barkeeps managed to make a profit. On the left, a small stage stood next to an automated player piano, plinking an old tune ever so slightly out of rhythm. Scattered through the room was a board of darts, a table where several rough-looking armed men were playing cards, a ragged-looking but well-dressed man drinking from what must have been the largest glass in the city, and a wall with wanted posters. The newest one, posted on top, was an updated one for Jack the Slasher, his bounty had apparently been raised to five thousand dollars. On the second floor, the saloon continued, giving the seated men a good view of the stage. It was all lit by several windows and a large metal chandelier that had been modified to accept gas instead of lamp oil.

She walked to the bar and found an empty chair where she could sit, plonking herself down and then turning in place to face the bar. Within moments, a large man with a well-groomed moustache and a massive pot-belly appeared before her, his hands busy cleaning a glass with a piece of cloth.

"Howdy young lady," the man said, giving her a quick, friendly smile, "how can I help you?"

Sophia grabbed a coin from her pocket, flipping it into the air, where the barkeep gracefully caught it. "Just get me a beer," she replied.

"Coming up," the man replied, shuffling over to the tap, where he filled a glass with the refreshing yellow liquid, a large layer of foam on top that he then largely removed with a quick swipe of a specialized device the name of which she didn't know.

Sophia's observations were interrupted by the arrival of a large man, one of the people she'd seen sitting at the cards table before. She looked him in the eyes, one hand straddling her gun. He looked like he'd be trouble.

"We don't take kindly to strangers around here," the man said. He was wearing a sleeveless wifebeater made out of coarse leather, and a rather impressive mustache, the sides of which drooped down below his chin. He was wearing a brown hat with a large rim, and had a large oversized fowling piece he carried at his waist-belt. He was large in both ways men could be large, both strong and fat at the same time.

"That's funny, I cause I don't take kindly to smelly lardasses interrupting my drinking," she told him.

"Then it seems we're in agreement," the man said, crunching his fists together. His arms were impressively muscled, and his biceps featured a tattoo of some sort of strange symbol, a cross with extra lines at the end of each of them. It wasn't something she'd seen before.

"Shhhhhhh" another man suddenly interrupted them, moments after the player piano went still, "the show is about to start."

"We'll finish this later," the large man said, walking back towards the cards table, and as the automated piano started playing a soft, slow song, a young woman walked towards the stage. She was wearing an elegant dress in the current fashion, with flowing skirts that swayed as she walked and accentuated her curves. Her scarlet hair was done up in an elaborate coiffure, and she was wearing golden earrings and a necklace glimmering with precious stones. She looked to be just about Sophia's age. Old enough to be an adult, but young enough that most people still thought of you as a child, and her presence turned the head of every man in the room, as well as that of quite a few of the women. Then, as the barkeep placed Sophia's drink before her, the redhead took her place on the stage, grabbing hold of a wooden pole standing there for some reason, and singing into it.  
 _  
"I'm a poor lonesome cowgirl,  
And I'm a long long way from home."_

The notes flowed from her, perfectly in tune with the old piano.

 _"And this poor lonesome cowgirl,  
Has got a long long way to roam.  
Over mountains over prairies,  
From dawn till day is done,  
My horse and me keep riding,  
Into the setting sun."_

Taking hold of her drink, Sophia turned around, sipping slowly as her attention -and that of the rest of the room as well- was focused on the redheaded angel on the stage. She wondered, was this woman a Cloak, Blessed with unnatural singing abilities? She remembered someone like that, somewhere back east in the cities.

Eventually, the song and show wound down, and Sophia turned back to the barkeep, her glass now empty.

"You know where I can find the physician?" she asked the man. She liked the words, It was more sophisticated than simply saying doctor.

"Over there, but I don't think he'll be much use to you," the barkeep said, swift and to the point, extending his arm towards the well-dressed man. "But are you sure I can't interest you in a bite to eat first? We've got a special deal on our Challenger!"

"Maybe later," Sophia said, idly wondering what, exactly, the challenger was. Presumably, it was some sort of a challenge to eat it. Maybe it was disgusting?

She rose from her seat and walked up to the table, sitting down opposite the doctor.

"Go away, I'm a failure, and I don't have any medicine to sell you," the man said, hiding his head between his arms, the smell of alcohol flowing from him.

"That's why I'm here," Sophia said. "I have a delivery for you."

She took the package out of her pockets, and placed it on the table, in front of the man.

He looked up, eyeing the package with glee. Then, he saw the person who had delivered his package, and his mood took a turn for the worse.

"I don't need this," he said.

"Yes you do," Sophia replied. "You ordered this, so you need this, and I need to get paid."

"Well, bad luck for you," the man said. "I haven't exactly been able to run my clinic without medicine, so it's not like I have any money."

Sophia sighed. Of course, this fucker wouldn't pay her, and he had just enough of an excuse she couldn't yell at him without people looking strangely at her.

"I'll be staying in town for a few days," she said, leaving the package behind on the table. "You better pay me later." Then, she walked back to the bar, waiting for the barkeep to return so that she could get a room.

Standing there, she heard footsteps behind her, and cold metal being pressed into the back of her cloak.

"I said, we don't take kindly to strangers round here," the large man told her, sounding grim.

"I heard you the first time," Sophia replied, her mind on the gun at her waist. She could move her hand and draw it before the man behind her would even notice. Problem was, she wouldn't be able to easily shoot at a target standing right behind her, not without him noticing that something was up.

She went through her options. Behind her, a self-assured asshole with a gun in her back. In front of her, the bar, and behind that, a large pressurized tank of beer.

"Well, you should've listened the first time," the man said. "It's a shame I'm gonna have to kill a girl as young as you."

It wasn't hard to figure out what to do. In less than half a second, before the man could react to her moves, she drew her gun, aimed right in front of her, fired, and shifted states.

The bullet flew forward, and just as the lead projectile penetrated the iron tank, the angry man fired his own gun.

The thug's projectile joined Sophia's creating two holes within the tank, quickly rupturing it, spraying them with the alcoholic liquid it contained. Or rather, spraying the man behind her, since liquids like that weren't really a problem in her shadow state.

Then, before the man could recover from the shock of bathing in beer, she turned around, and fired a second shot, straight into the man's rifle, breaking it apart in such a way that the only thing another shot could achieve was mangling his hands in the resulting explosion.

Sophia turned around, spotting the man's friends, standing at a distance, but drawing their guns. As she turned back to normal, she fired four more shots, each hitting one of the guns, and as the last bullet left her weapon, the first of her targets finally noticed that his revolver had been shot out of his hand.

In the rest of the saloon, people started screaming and yelling, running around like townsfolk usually did, but Sophia didn't let it distract her, instead looking the brute she was now facing straight in the eyes.

"So you're a Cloak then, huh?" he rhetorically asked, a grim smile appearing on his face. "I bet ya feel real proud of yourself, destroying my pretty like that," he continued, showing off the large piece in his hands. "Thing is, you're not the only Cloak round here, and I'm pretty sure you're out of bullets as well."

As he said that, claws of pressurized air started to form around his hands, and it looked like the man felt proud of himself for being lucky enough that Sophia hadn't decided to aim for his head instead.

The thug punched at her, and Sophia turned to smoke. The advantage of her power was that she was completely immune to most mundane attacks. Fists, swords, bullets, cavalry charges and the like. Problem was, while the fist did nothing to her, the air of the claw itself launched her upwards, through the roof, landing her on the second floor of the saloon. As she shifted back, she heard the man's fist enter the beer tank below her, which exploded further, covering him in more of the sticky liquid.

Sophia found herself on a balcony, containing more tables, overlooking the main room of the saloon, and with a good view of the stage, where the red-headed girl was trying to hide. Almost automatically, she started reloading her gun, not needing to pay any attention to the movement, while the thug launched several fistfuls of air into the ceiling above him, breaking apart the wooden planks.

"This town's not big enough for the both of us girl! Get on your horse right now, and I'll let you live!" the man said.

"Don't make me laugh!" Sophia replied as she ran towards the railing of the balcony, jumping over it in a backflip with a spin. In mid-air, she fired at one of the man's cronies, who had taken a second gun from his back, after which she landed on a table in front of the stage, facing the five men, gun pointed towards their leader.

"Come on, try me," the man said, claws in front of his face, and Sophia fired.

The bullet was caught in the twisted air, deflected to the ground. Annoying, Sophia thought, but it was nothing she hadn't dealt with before.

"My turn," the man said with a twisted grin on his face, launching a claw of air at Sophia.

She was about to dodge, when she remembered the young redhead, hiding behind her behind her singing stick.

Instead of dodging out of the way, Sophia took a short jump back, landing on the edge of the table, bringing it out of balance and flipping it over, launching the wood into the air where the claw smashed into it, breaking up both the wood and the compressed air.

Then, Sophia took a few steps to the side, and fired again, the bullet once again smashing into the shield of air.

"Heh," the man laughed, launching another blast of air at Sophia.

The problem, she decided, was that her power, the very thing that made her a cloak, was useless here. Sure, she couldn't be hurt by the man's blasts, but they'd throw her around, displacing her around the battlefield, and taking away any strategic advantage she had.

She dodged it, wheeling on her feet like a dancer in the Russian Ballet, making it look effortless, and fired again. As before, it was deflected by the man's shield, but the onslaught of bullets meant that his friends stayed behind, far too afraid for their own hides to help out their boss. Presumably, that meant that the man would have difficulty extending the protection of his shield beyond himself.

"You're not very smart, are you?" the man laughed, slowly walking towards Sophia, confident in the strength of his shield.

She launched two more bullets, cursing in frustration. How the fuck was she supposed to get through his shield?

"And that's six," the man said. "You're out, again."

"Well fuck," Sophia said, and when the man took the last few steps in her direction, she dropped her gun to the ground, bringing up her fists in a fighting stance.

"Really girl? I'd like to see you try," the man said, a smile on his face.

Sophia dashed forward, her fists held forward for a fight, but dashing through the man using her shadow-state, holding steady through the momentary winds of his ability. Then, turning back on the other side of him, she pulled her crossbow from beneath the cloak of her duster, hidden at her back, and send a bolt flying straight through the ruffian's calf.

"Rhaagh!" the man cried out in pain, turning around, foam flying from his mouth. "I'll fucking murder ya!"

"I know," Sophia replied, using her free hand to hold her nose closed.

Still foaming, the man punched at her in rage. A move she'd seen before, and not one that she'd fall for again. Staying light on her feet, she dodged it, dancing in between the explosive claws.

"That's it? Really?" she taunted, stepping back further out of his range.

The man tried to follow, still angry, stopped when he had to lean on his wounded leg.

"Not so easy huh?"

"SHUT UP!" the man screamed at her.

"Heh."

Looking at the man, she could physically see his tiny little brain try to think, a drop of sweat forming on his muscle-headed brow.

Then, the man turned his back to her, jumping towards the redheaded singer, still hunkered down near her stage, too afraid to move.

"Shit," she muttered under her breath, quickly loading a new bolt on her crossbow, but it was too late. The cloak had been able to get hold of the girl, holding a claw of compressed air to her throat. The girl started screaming, as the man smiled.

"Drop your weapons, leave town, and I'll let the girl live. You white hats like that stuff don't you?" he asked.

Sophia lowered her crossbow, taking a few steps away from the man, who proudly stepped towards the middle of the largely empty saloon.

Sophia smiled, raising her crossbow again once she saw where he was standing.

"What, you want the girl to get it? Know that it's on your head girly!"

"Try me," Sophia said, aiming at the man's head without looking at it.

Then, just as the man tried to cut, the girl, held with one arm between Sophia and the villain, swung her head backwards and up, into the man's nose.

For just a second, he released her in shock, and Sophia fired.

She didn't fire at the man. He would have been able to easily swat away the bolt with his powers. Instead, she aimed above him, the bolt flying through the chain that held up the chandelier, almost entirely severing it.

"Hah, missed me," the man with the air-claws said, -one hand on his now bloody nose, the other ready to grab the singer again-, just as the weakened link in the chain snapped. The chandelier fell down, on top of the cloak. It had been designed with a hole in the middle, fitting perfectly around him, locking up his arms, and stopping him from using both his arms and his ability.

He roared out in pain, trying to attack her, but falling over in the process, unable to catch his fall with his hands due to the metal chandelier.

"Anyone else?" Sophia asked nonchalantly as she turned to the few remaining men in the rooms that had remained to watch the fight, her hands reloading her crossbow without looking at it. She enjoyed this, relished in it even. A bar-brawl like this was exactly what she needed after the long, grueling and tiresome journey.

The thugs, seeing that their fearsome leader had lost, ran for it, leaving the saloon doors swinging behind them, with only one of them loyal enough to pull the large man along with him.

"I thought so," Sophia said, bending down to grab her revolver from where she'd dropped it on the ground.

"My hero!" a sing-song voice called out, and before she could do anything to react, the redheaded girl embraced Sophia from behind with a jump. "You saved me!"

Sophia tolerated it, deciding not to escape using her ability, as the girl's embrace nearly squished her.

"I must say young lady, that was quite a gunfight, taking down El Tigre like that," the barkeep said, tactically reappearing from his hiding position behind the bar, where he had been busy cleaning up the spilled beer. "May I know your name?"

"They call me Hess," Sophia said, showing off by swinging her revolver around with her finger through the trigger guard. "And I shoot faster than my own shadow." 


	2. Chapter 2: Meet the Sheriff

**Chapter 2: Meet the Sheriff**

"Well, I'm going to call you my hero," the girl said, bending forwards to give Sophia a peck on the cheek.

"Right, yes, hero," Sophia replied, "and you are?"

"Emma Barnes, at your service," she said with a slight curtsy. "And one day, I'm going to be a star, singing on Broadway!"

"Why would you be singing in the middle of the street?" Sophia asked her.

"Not in the streets you silly, in the musicals!" Emma said with a smile on her face.

Right… Sophia thought, turning away from the young woman.

"Anyway, thank you for taking care of El Tigre and his men," the barkeep smiled, before quickly turning his smile upside down. "Sadly, by driving him away, you have opened up our town to attacks by the Starchaser tribe."

"The Starchasers?" Sophia asked. From what she remembered, the Starchasers were a largely peaceful tribe, far more interested in chasing arcane and celestial revelations than terrorizing frontier towns.

"Yes. They have this new warchief, a young woman by the name of Slashing Cricket, and while they are most certainly dangerous brutes, El Tigre's crew has been the only thing standing between us and their attacks!" the man proclaimed in desperation.

"So that's what's been going on," Sophia said. A bunch of thugs, one of them a Cloak, were the only thing standing between this town and annihilation by tribal attacks, and she'd just taken down their only protection.

"Well, I'll go talk to the Sheriff," Sophia said. "Can I get a room for the night?"

"Of course, for you, free of charge," the barkeep said. "Just make sure that El Tigre doesn't come back for my hide."

While the man was talking, Sophia had already left the bar, grabbing the package that the fleeing doctor had left behind, and holding Jumper's reins. She set off through the muddy streets of the town, looking for the office of the Sheriff. It was time to figure out how exactly people like El Tigre were allowed to roam free here.

"Hold on miss Hess, wait for me!" Emma called out, running after Sophia in her long dress, taking up position at her side.

"What do you want?" she asked, trying to figure out the mind of her self-appointed companion.

"What, can't I just want to spend some time with my heroic savior?" Emma replied. "Plus, you're the only interesting thing to happen here in weeks!"

"That boring huh?" Sophia asked. "Well, I'm afraid I won't stick around for long. I'm a drifter, not a permanent fixture."

"Well, that just means I'll have to make the best out of my limited time with you!" she smiled.

Of course… Sophia thought. Well, as far as hanger-ons went, Emma wasn't the worst. The young woman was easy on the eyes, and would probably have the sense to run the moment a fight broke out. In addition to that, she was a local, and would know her way around town.

"Where's the sheriff's office?" Sophia asked her companion, who had been partially distracted by playing with Jumper's hair.

"Just down Lord's Street," Emma said, "like just about everything in town."

"Why isn't it called Main Street?" Sophia asked.

"They say the town was founded by a disgraced European aristocrat. I'm not sure if it's true, but that's what they say anyway."

"I see…" Sophia said. She didn't. America, and the Frontier in particular, was a place where you were judged for your acts, not your heritage. Then again, the man had managed to found a frontier town. One that, except for its more recent troubles, was doing quite well for itself.

"Oh drat, it's her," Emma suddenly said, motioning two girls who were walking down the streets, followed by a large contingent of small children. Both dark-haired, the taller of the two was wearing eye-glasses, and seemed to be looking down at the ground now that she'd spotted Emma. The other young woman was also nervous, but slightly less so.

Sophia ignored the girls and their underage entourage, stepping past them with determination in her tread, and when Jumper tried to get some head rubs from the children, she pulled his reins. This wasn't the moment for that, and little children annoyed her something fierce.

"Fucking creepy nerds, thinking they're smarter than us," Emma complained.

"Nerds?" Sophia asked.

"Those girls, especially the tall one, thinks she's better than us just because she's the resident schoolmarm," Emma said.

"She's the teacher? She looks like she's barely out of school," Sophia replied.

"I know, right? All because her mother studied back in the East, she thinks she's smarter than the rest of us!" Emma complained. "She doesn't even want to hang out in the saloon anymore, ever since her mother died. She claims she's too busy with her teaching."

Sophia nodded, not entirely sure how to respond to Emma's monologue. The girl was obviously upset, but she didn't really know anything about the situation, and meddling at this point could only lead to conflict.

She thought about that for a second, looking back at the other girl's long black curls. She looked weak, just a school-teacher too young for her job, not a real challenge, like El Tigre had been.

"Come on, Sheriff's here," Emma said, holding a door open for Sophia.

She walked inside, and observed the dusty sheriff's office. The building was the color of sand and hopelessness, and the lack of light made it clear that this was not a place in good shape.

"Hello? Anyone there?" she called out, trying not to notice the buildup of dust around the place. Emma didn't follow behind her, too afraid of whatever law-man was in charge here.

"What, another complaint?" a pained voice called out from the shadows, and Sophia looked at the source.

A middle-aged woman with a formidable body was sitting in a large chair, behind a massive hardwood desk. Her eyes sunken, her hair cut short in an unflattering cut, and with heavy muscles covered in an equally heavy layer of fat.

Three different objects immediately stood out. First, there was a cane, leaning against the side of her chair. Thick, long, and lined with steel, it looked like the implement was used for more than just walking. Second was the gun lying on the desk, a large custom piece of sandalwood and rare earth metals, and fine engravings that included glowing thread. It looked like the kind of gun that could kill just about anyone in a single shot, which made Sophia very interested in why the sheriff hadn't killed El Tigre yet, and where she'd gotten the gun. The third object was the sheriff's star, attached to the woman's breast in all it's golden glory. This was a keeper of the law, a lone bastion of justice in a lawless frontier, and she was sitting in her chair while her town was slowly bled dry.

"Not exactly," Sophia replied. "Just wanted to tell you I chased off El Tigre before someone else did."

"And gloat at my uselessness?" the woman asked, while one of her hands moved towards the desk. Not for the gun, but a handkerchief lying on it. She coughed into it, and Sophia could see a few specks of blood when the woman tried to hide it.

"I believe at least part of this is for you?" she said, throwing the doctor's package on the desk. It hadn't been a question, it was more, what was the word? Rhetorical?

The woman inspected the package, and opened a drawer in her desk, taking out a set of matches, with which she lit a small oil-lamp. With sufficient light, which did nothing to improve the way the woman looked, she managed to read its label, and opened it.

"Is there a reason you didn't bring this to the intended recipient?" the woman asked tersely.

"Besides him being a drunkard with neither cash nor credit to his name? He ran away and left it behind," Sophia answered.

"I see…" the Sheriff said, hands deftly picking through the contents of the package until she found a bottle of pills. "I suppose you'll be wanting payment?"

"I wouldn't dislike it," Sophia answered. In truth, money wasn't the real reason she did what she did. Still, she had expenses. Horse-feed, ammunition, leather, none of these things were free.

"If you give me some time, I'll have something ready for my part of this delivery," the woman said, unscrewing the top of the bottle, and taking out a pill that she immediately placed under her tongue. "Do you plan on staying in town?"

"Not for long," Sophia replied. "Until something better comes along. Although I was wondering, I'd always heard that the Starchaser tribe was peaceful. Do you have any idea about what could have set them off?"

"Who knows with their type," the Sheriff replied, "but the trouble started around the first time El Tigre came to town. He claimed the Starchasers were going to attack, but nobody believed him.

The next day, a war-party raided one of the nearby ranchers, taking his cattle for themselves. The day after, I managed to chase them off with a few well-placed shots. They laid low for a while, until the merchant caravans started getting attacked."

"All of them?" Sophia asked.

"No, but they got the ones that mattered," the woman replied. "And as such, you're here now."

"Smart of them," Sophia said. "taking down the opposition indirectly."

"Wasn't smart, just lucky," the woman replied, already looking better. What exactly was in that medicine? "The caravans were raided by an unrelated group of bandits, led by some sort of metal man, one of the Forsaken."

Forsaken, it wasn't a term you saw all that much these days, outside of pulpits belonging to particularly hell-and-brimstone-y preachers. It was one of many different names given to people like her, those with supernatural abilities. As such, according to specific interpretations, her witchcraft meant that god had forsaken her. In other words, the fact that this woman said forsaken meant that she wouldn't be all too happy about the fact that Sophia was a Cloak.

"Metal… I'm guessing he's armored then," Sophia said, her hand idly spinning the cylinder of her revolver. "He's going to be rather problematic to put down, if he shows up."

"Not a problem for me," the Sheriff said, grabbing hold of the ornate gun, and spinning it in her hand. "My friend here can put down pretty much anything, a rabid dog, even one like that, won't be much of a problem."

"If you actually managed to get into range," Sophia retorted. "In your condition? Against a cloak that knows what he's doing? Not likely.."

The woman slammed her weapon down on the table again. Anger? Frustration at being unable to go out and fight? Both?

"True," she said with a dark look in her eyes. "But not relevant right now."

Suddenly, light once again entered the dusty Sheriff's office, as Emma stuck her head through the door opening.

"Sophia? We may have a teensy tiny problem," the redhead stated, and she could hear the cries of an angry crowd through the open door. 


	3. Chapter 3: The Starchasers

**Chapter 3: The Starchasers**

"Why, what's wrong?" Sophia asked, although she could take a guess.

"Another angry mob, I presume. It happens every now and then," the Sheriff said. "Who are they after, girl?"

"Miss Hess here, ma'am," Emma replied with fear in her voice. Was she afraid of the angry mob outside, or of the Sheriff?

"I see… I presume they've realized the consequences of your battle with El Tigre then," she said, turning back to Sophia. "There's a balcony on the second floor, use that to escape while I'll handle the crowd."

"And my payment?" Sophia asked.

"We'll deal with that after this situation's dealt with," the woman said, standing up from her desk, leaning on her walking stick with her gun in her free hand.

"Fine…" Sophia replied. Annoying, how simple folk like these always reacted so predictably. First, they're happy that you save them from the crazy gunslinging Cloak, then they turn around and want to lynch you for doing that very same thing. Why couldn't mobs just keep themselves to one opinion?

"Don't follow me," Sophia said to her fan, dashing upstairs while the Sheriff was handling the crowd. The balcony was easy to find, and she put two fingers in her mouth, whistling hard, but in a way that people couldn't understand. Just like dogs, horses could hear sounds that normal people couldn't, and this specific one was a trick she'd learned from an inventor somewhere to the north.

While everyone was busy yelling at the Sheriff, Jumper took the signal to walk around the side of the office, and Sophia jumped down, landing in the saddle.

"Giddy up boy," she said, moving her legs to tell him it was time to run. Jumper obliged, racing forwards, away from the frontier town.

Sophia sighed. She'd only just arrived, and already had to leave. The closest town over a day's ride away, so she'd have to camp outside, in the sand, again.

Or… The Starchasers were nearby, weren't they? Wasn't that the whole problem? They'd probably have a warm bed available for her. It'd been awhile since she'd last met them, but they'd always been friendly to her. Of course, that had been before they'd started attacking frontier towns.

Jumper, in the meantime, was just happy to be running, his hooves kicking up dust while they made their way through the dusty prairie. There was a strange calmness to it, the wind in your hair, a horse between your legs, and nothing to rely on but yourself and your trusty companion.

Eventually, she reached the top of the hill, and looked down on the city of tents that was the Starchaser camp. Which, while a relief, was also strange. The Starchasers, while generally peaceful, weren't idiots. If she had found their camp before their scouts found her, while she wasn't even trying to be stealthy, then there was something wrong.

Slowly, one hand on her gun, she made her way down the hill, closing in on the tipi-based city. She could see the tribespeople, some of them sitting around a fire, a few children playing, running around the tent, and a pair of women sewing some clothing.

Then, one of the children spotted her, and started screaming.

Sophia ignored it. She'd never liked little children, and Indian children weren't any better than those from the States. They screamed, they cried, and they couldn't be serious for longer than a minute.

Eventually, as she rode between the largely empty tents, she saw the chief come out of the tallest tipi, leaning on a large staff.

"Walks With Trees, it is good to see you again," she stated, looking the older man in the eyes.

"Hess," he replied, a massive grin spreading over his face. Behind him, inside of the tipi, she could see smoke whirling around.

"I just came from the local town, they told me the wildest stories about you," Sophia said. It wasn't a question, not exactly, but it would probably give her their side of the story.

"Wild stories? Sounds good. Come on in! You can tell me all about them!" the chief continued with a hazy look in his eyes. He turned to one of the women sitting around the campfire. She looked distraught, ashamed, fearful. "Adoetta, be a dear and bring us something to eat? Miss Hess looks like she's had a long journey behind her, and I'm hungry."

"But we just ate…" the woman protested, before standing up anyway, and walking towards one of the tents.

"Come, come, we will discuss many important things, and we must smoke the ceremonial pipe," the chief said.

"Must we? Is there an important ceremony I am not aware of?" Sophia asked. She liked to think she was quite skilled at dealing with the natives, but the finer details of their culture sometimes eluded her, such as exactly when and why they held some of their ceremonies.

"No, no, not at all," he replied, as he walked back into his tipi. Sophia followed, almost chocking on the sweet fumes.

"Why then?" she asked, holding a hand before her mouth. Depending on the type of smoke, this could be troublesome. It'd been a while ago, but a man that turned himself into living mist had once stopped her from reforming properly, after shifting states, and Grue of the Undersiders similarly interfered with her abilities.

"Because this is some good stuff!" the Chief grinned, much more jovial now that he was out of sight of his tribespeople. "You have to try this!" he continued, almost giggling, and shoving his peace pipe at her.

Smart enough to know not to say no to a peace-pipe, but also smart enough to know that smoking whatever was in this one was probably a bad idea, Sophia took the pipe, inhaled, put the pipe to her mouth, inhaled some more, and then dramatically exhaled the smoke that had been largely confined to her mouth.

"See? Good stuff!" Walks With Trees said, smiling like a little kid. There was definitely something weird in that pipe, better not to shift right now.

"Walks, who gave you that pipeweed?" Sophia asked him, and the man thought about it for a bit.

"Don't know. Our little Cricket brought it back from a raid. Have you met Cricket? She's a great hunter and an amazing warrior you know," the man replied, taking another blast from his pipe.

Right, of course whatever had incapacitated the chieftain came from that same Cricket woman that the Sheriff had been complaining about. She'd raid the town, pretend to find whatever drug was in that pipe, give it to their chief, and subsequently control the entire town's warriors, leaving the civilians behind with a useless leader. So who was this Cricket person? Why did she do what she was doing here? What were her intentions?

Did she have a problem with El Tigre? An old rivalry they were expanding through proxies? That seemed most likely. Both had animal-inspired monikers, which made it likely that they had attained their abilities at the same time, and like the playwrights said, that meant it was either kissing or killing. In this case, it had quite obviously come down to killing.

"You know Hess, I could really go for some snacks right now," the Chieftain said, breathing out another cloud of smoke.

"I'll go check if it's ready yet," Sophia replied, seeing an excuse to leave the tent and its incapacitating mists.

"Nonsense, nonsense, you're my guest, you shouldn't be running around for food. I'll go," he said, standing up, and stopping halfway through, staring at nothing in particular.

"It's alright," Sophia said. "I need to get up to some lady business anyway," she lied.

As always, the line worked, and the chieftain, horrified at things to private for the minds of men (rather than the minds of women) to understand, suddenly changed his tone, and was perfectly okay with her leaving.

She took the opportunity, stepping outside, and neatly dodging the woman coming in with the chieftain's refreshments. Given how hungry the man seemed to be, it was probably the fifth time she'd been told to do so today.

Then, her observations were disturbed by a pebble thrown at the back of her head, which she reflexively shifted through while turning around. A girl, young but not too young to hold a conversation with, was hiding behind a pole of the tipi, another pebble in her hand.

Sophia rushed forwards, accelerating the same way she usually did when trying to dodge gunfire, but something changed, and the distance between her and the girl suddenly increased.

Sophia quickly stopped, one hand on her gun, the other searching for her crossbow.

"You're a cloak," she remarked, and the girl nodded as the distance between them increased.

"You're too," the girl replied, referring to the way she'd moved through the rock.

"Are we going to have a fight?" Sophia asked.

"What do you want from us? The chief's being weird, so Slashing Cricket's in charge, and she's not going to buy beads from you," she said.

"Right now? A place to crash. I just got driven out of the Gulch for giving a cat what it deserved," Sophia replied, putting her gun back in its holster, and taking a much more eased stance. This wasn't going to end up in a fight unless shit went crazy. Although, given the smoke inside of the tent...

"You're not here to attack us?" the girl asked.

"Of course not! The chieftain and I have known each other for a while, and I've never had trouble with your tribe." Sophia replied.

"Slashing Cricket will still kill you though," the kid said, but it wasn't in the manner in which children usually taunted about how their brother would totally beat you up. Instead, it seemed like there was regret in her voice.

Just like in Brockton Gulch, these people didn't exactly like their protectors.

"Speaking of Slashing Cricket, if she's leading the town now, why isn't she here?" Sophia asked.

"Why do you want to know?" the girl asked.

"Because apparently, she'll try to kill me, so I want to be prepared when she tries."

"You can't beat her," the girl said. "No white man could."

"I'm a negress, not a white man," Sophia replied.

"You get what I mean though… You can't shoot her, she just blocks the bullets with her tomahawks, and then she'll slice you into pieces."

"She can't slice what can't be cut," Sophia replied, turning into a shadow for just a split-second.

"You still won't win," the girl said, shaking her head.

"Look kid, what's your name anyway?"  
"Dances with Mountains," the child mumbled.

"Well, Mountains, can I call you Mountains?" Sophia said, going through her knees a little bit. Her mother had always done that to her, get on her level before scolding her. Now that she thought about it, that probably meant that it was the wrong thing to do. Her mother wasn't exactly a good person.

The girl nodded.

"Well, I think that maybe, if I had your help, we could beat Slashing Cricket together?" Sophia suggested.

The girl's face showed a mixture of emotions. Fear, bravery, enthusiasm, and more fear.

"You won't have to do much, just give us some distance around us so we won't get interrupted."

"But… if Slashing Cricket isn't here, who will lead us?" the girl asked.

"If Slashing Cricket isn't around," Sophia whispered, pausing to insert some dramatic tension in her sentence, "then the chieftain won't get a new supply for the peace-pipe, will he now?"

"Ritual pipe," the girl replied in defiance. "It's not just for peace."

"Fine, ritual pipe. Point still stands. So, anyway, do you know where Crickets is right now?"

"Oh, she won't be back for a while, the warriors just left town," Dances said.

"Where did they go?" Sophia asked, although she feared she already knew the answer. Would nothing be easy today?

"They went to raid the town," the young Cloak said. "Vengeance for last week, when the Tiger killed the chieftain's younger brother."

"Only one death?" Sophia asked, a sinking feeling building up in her chest. She was pretty sure she'd figured out what was happening here.

"Uh-huh," she replied. "And a few people with wounds, but the chieftain's medicine stockpile still worked."

Sophia put her fingers in her mouth, and whistled again. Within seconds, Jumper appeared from around a corner, slowly trotting forwards, inspecting the little girl Sophia was talking to. He was a smart horse, he knew she didn't usually pay attention to the little monsters, which meant that this one was somehow special, and probably supplied hugs and attention.

"Dances With Mountains," Sophia said, as she jumped on Jumper's back in one quick motion, quickly turning into a living shadow while moving through the horse. "You better get on, because I'm pretty sure your people and the Brocktonites are both being played!"


	4. Chapter 4: The Cricket's chirping

**Chapter 4: The Crickets' chirping**

"So, Slashing Cricket, tell me about her!" Sophia yelled at the girl desperately clutching at her back, making sure her voice was loud enough to be heard. Apparently, Dances with Mountains had never ridden a horse before, let alone one as fast and agile as Jumper.

"I told you!" the girl screamed, trying to get over the sound of the wind in their ears. "She can block bullets with those tomahawks of her, and she's too fast to attack her at close range!"  
"Other weaknesses? Secondary weapons? Personality traits, something I can use to piss her off?"

"Ehmmm, well, there's her voice. It's really hoarse, so she can't talk all that loudly. And she's got a lot of scars! Like, more than normal people with a lot of scars. But that's not a weakness, it just shows how scary she is!" the little girl yelled back.

"Not really," Sophia replied. "It shows that she got hit. Although, I'll give her some credit for surviving multiple fights after getting wounded, that tends to be rather difficult."

It was interesting though. Apparently, this Slashing Cricket was some sort of traveling native, offering her skills to different tribes for one reason or another. But if she'd traveled so far and wide, why hadn't she found someone that could help her with her scars? Sophia wasn't exactly vain herself, but when a healer in Louisiana had offered to heal some of her more annoying long-term injuries, she hadn't said no. Which meant that there was a high chance that this Cricket person prided herself on her battle-wounds. That she took joy in having those scars, and most importantly, that she would allow herself to take a hit, self-assured enough that she wouldn't take a second.

Sophia smiled, as her hands reached down to one of the saddlebags swinging around in their mad dash towards the town, taking one of her more specialized tools out of it. Going the other way around, through a valley between the native's encampment and the village, instead of over the hills, she spotted the tracks of Cricket's war party. It was a medium-sized group of horses, about a dozen? It wasn't much, but it was enough to cause mayhem, especially if the Sheriff and El Tigre were both incapacitated.

Of course, El Tigre was probably just ashamed of his defeat, but if Sophia's intuitions were correct, then him simply not standing at attention right now could become disastrous for the town.

"Can't you do that thing where you twist space?" Sophia asked. "That would be a lot faster!"

"I'm trying, but I can't exactly do anything with all this bouncing around" the girl replied, sounding slightly miffed at her.

Sophia let up the pressure with her hips, and clicked her tongue once, and Jumper slowed down drastically, now slowly trotting down the horse tracks instead.

"That better?" she asked, no longer having to yell through the wind. Sure, the girl was just a child, but was she really so incompetent that she couldn't apply her power on a horse?

"Yes, thank you," the girl replied sincerely, and Sophia could see the terrain in front of her fold together, as miles slowly turned into feet. For just a bit, Jumper seemed nervous. Then, her faithful companion sniffed at the folded air in front of them, and stepped forwards, their traveling speed drastically increasing, all because they'd slowed down.

Sometimes, Sophia thought, Cloak abilities were absolutely ridiculous. Luckily, today's opponent would be relatively straightforward. Strong, agile, dangerous and deadly, but straightforward. Exactly the type of fight Sophia reveled in.

Then, as the world literally started unfolding around them, Sophia spotted Brockton Gulch in the distance. Only a few hours ago, they'd chased her out of town for daring to defend herself against a malicious cloak that didn't like it when capable people entered town. Now, she'd returned to save them from a warchief that could, according to what seemed to be a space-twisting ten year old, block bullets with her weapons.

Well, this wasn't the first time Sophia had fought someone like that.

Her eyes scanned the edge of the town. The villagers had made an impromptu barrier down the main road, an enterprising few hiding behind it with long rifles, taking potshot at the Native Americans that were swarming the outside of the town on their horses, yelling loudly and firing arrows every now and then.

Both sides however, were horrible shots. Still, an attack was an attack, and in a small town like this, one raid could wipe out the entire town. This was serious, serious enough that people would either join the defence, or hide in their homes.

Not spotting a heavily scarred woman with twin tomahawks amongst the attackers, Sophia pulled Jumper's reins to the side. Yes, this was bad, but if anything went wrong inside of the town, things would probably get a whole lot worse.

"What are you doing?" Mountains yelled from behind her when she noticed that she was circling around the town, away from the attackers. "Those people are shooting at each other."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure they're just shooting near to each other," Sophia replied. "We, however, are going straight for the heart of this problem!"

"Isn't the heart of this problem the fact that they're quite literally shooting at each other over there? I mean, I know I'm just a kid, but i'm not stupid!" Dances yelled.

"Well, depends on how you define the heart of the problem I guess. I'm thinking wider context, the actual problem here. Because if you look, you'll see that Cricket's not actually fighting, nor is the leader of the town's defenders. Now, that second part is probably because he's crying in his room right now, but Cricket's absence? It means that something didn't go the way she'd planned it to go. And given the relative lack of just about anything on the outskirts of town, the only place she could've gone is into the town, probably searching for the guy that's supposed to be her enemy," Sophia said, explaining her deductions to the child. Someday, the girl would have to start being useful, might as well give her an early start by teaching her a bit.

"Wait, supposed to be? I don't follow…" her young companion said.

Sophia ignored her, spurring Jumper into an even faster gait, galloping through the street.

The question was, why? Yes, the current situation gave the both of them a place in the lap of luxury, at the head of their respective factions, but that wouldn't last forever. This wasn't something they could do long-term, so what was their actual plan?

In the absence of a proper idea of what her opponents were doing, there was only one thing that Sophia could think of.

 _When in doubt, rob a bank._

That had been the motto of 'The Grue', the leader of the infamous Undersiders. Or rather, it had been the motto that the newspapers back East ascribed to The Grue. In reality, Brian was the careful one, but claiming that the leader of the infamous Undersiders was careful and deliberate didn't sell any copies.

They dashed through the streets, dust thrown up into the air behind Jumper's feet, until they found the building in question. The Lord's Bank. She immediately knew this was the place. The front door had had its lock smashed out with what looked to be brute force, and three horses were waiting in front of it. One normal riding horse, one large, slow pack-animal, and one of the wilder type that the natives used. That was worrying, and not exactly what she'd expected. After all, if El Tigre was here, why would he bring his horse? He lived in this town...

She shifted, flowing through her trusty steed, and landed on the ground, the little girl looking on in awe.

"You stay here, close the exit off behind me if you can," she said, walking through the ruined door and entering the bank before the girl could reply.

"I can fend for myself you know, I'm not just a little kid," the girl mumbled back at her, as the space behind her twisted, removing the entrance through a trick of unnatural geometry.

The interior was dark, both the main hall and the area behind the counter empty, and nothing but the faint glow of a lamp around the corner. Sophia checked her crossbow, making sure the right bolt was secured in place. Then, she stalked around, turning into shadows.

The problem with guns, she thought, was that they were too good. Her power allowed her, and everything she wore, to turn into a dark mist that could move through walls, trees, even people. When she threw something, or fired a weapon, it would quickly, but not immediately, turn back into normal matter. This was useful, for it allowed her to fire a bolt from her crossbow straight through a wall, and have it only re-materialize after passing through the obstacle. When timed correctly, she could even have the bolt materialize inside the body of her opponent, penetrating any possible defenses they might have. Guns however, were too powerful, the bullets soaring through the air at too high a velocity. As such, while the bullets did indeed re-materialize after a split-second, they usually did so only after passing straight through the enemy without harm. And at any range where the bullet would have rematerialized, the inherent limitations of her guns made precision work impossible.

Sneaking, almost invisible in the shadows, she passed through one of the brick walls of the bank. Her momentum slightly stalled, it was uncomfortable. These walls were too thick to easily penetrate, although they'd need to be a lot thicker to truly make them impenetrable. Still, it was more difficult than going through wood, or the canvas of an Indian tipi.

On the other side of the wall, she spotted her enemy. Slashing Cricket, clinging her axes against each other in boredom, standing in front of an open vault door.

Sophia smiled. The heavily scarred woman, clad in pelts and fur, hadn't seen her yet. That would make this easier.

She grabbed her gun, shifted back, and the moment she re-materialized, she fired straight at the warchief's heart.

The woman reacted immediately upon hearing the sound of her gun, blocking the bullet with the steel of one of her axes.

Sophia fired again, this time aiming closer to Cricket's hand. Again, the woman reacted, the steel of her axe ready to block the second shot, but Sophia wasn't called the fastest shot in the west for nothing. Almost before the bullet reached its target, she'd fired again, and this time, she wasn't aiming for Cricket. This time, she was aiming for the axe.

The third bullet soared through the air, and as the tomahawk almost automatically moved to block the second shot, the third hit the wood just beneath the axehead. The wood exploded into splinters, making the weapon unusable.

Enhanced reflexes were useful, Sophia thought, but they were still only reflexes. A smart opponent could work her way past those.

She fired her fourth shot, this time aiming for the knee. Adapting quickly, Slashing Cricket dropped her broken tomahawk, its remains colliding with the bullet in mid-air, blocking the shot.

For the fifth, roughly a second after the first, she shifted back to her shadow state for a split-second, the bullet flying forward in gaseous form. Cricket blocked, but was surprised by the lack of impact, the bullet flying straight through both the woman's axe and body.

Shifting back, the sixth shot hit the head of the second tomahawk, making use of Cricket's state of surprise to take out her other weapon.

About two seconds after the first shot had been fired, Slashing Cricket smiled.

"Smart girl, very smart girl. But, while I am out of axes, you are out of bullets," she said, her voice hoarse but satisfied. Then, the angry native ran forward, her hair, bound in three tight braids with metal rings at the end, flowing behind her. As the woman charged, a strange ringing sound filled Sophia's head.

Another power? One that Mountains hadn't known about? That could be problematic… Sophia reciprocated the smile, though she started getting nauseous.

Much faster than Sophia had expected, the woman had reached her, striking out with her hand in a predatory movement, straight for Sophia's jugular. She shifted, flowing through her opponent before turning back and trying to take her by surprise, but Cricket had already turned to her, readying another strike, this one aimed at Sophia's sternum.

Grabbing a knife from her belt, Sophia blocked, but her opponent's hand neatly dodged the blade without even looking at it. Sophia held it out in front of her in a defensive stance, watching her opponent back off just a bit.

How did her power work exactly? Was it just reflexes? Involuntary reactions that moved her out of danger? Or was it a specific type of enhanced speed? Did it worked on things that were trained, or only on the type of reflexes that everyone was born with? Or another category wholly independent of anything natural? Her opponent had dodged her knife, but broken off the attack, even though she could've gone through with the punch after redirecting it. That probably meant it was at least partially automatic. It defended her, it probably helped her in dashing forwards, but it didn't seem to help her make any tactical combat decisions.

That was useful, but it also meant that the next attack probably would snake through Sophia's defenses.

She threw the knife, and Slashing Cricket caught it in mid-air by the handle, before making a few slashing motions towards Sophia.

She noticed the tattoo, located on Cricket's fore-arm in the same way El Tigre's had been, but hidden among a greater pattern of ink and scarring. The same cross, with angles at the ends where it extended. Any doubts in her mind were instantly gone. This thing was fishy, very, very fishy.

Sophia dodged most of the slashes, but spotting the tattoo had taken some of her attention, and while the first two attacks missed, the third hit her in the shoulder, bouncing off of the layer of chainmail hidden beneath her duster before flashing past her cheek.

It wasn't deep, but it would hurt, and it would bleed like hell, she thought.

Well, that just meant this entire thing was going just according to her plan. The sound disoriented her, made her nauseous, but the effect wasn't as bad as it could've been in the worst possible situation. She wasn't throwing up yet, and her sense of balance was still working.

Barraged by attacks from Cricket, Sophia only barely managed to dodge most of them, the others bouncing off of her armor. The knife hadn't been that sharp, which was why she'd selected it for this strategy, it wouldn't actually penetrate her armor. Or, at least, it probably wouldn't.

Dancing back, dodging every strike, Sophia eventually found the time to grab her crossbow from it's hiding place beneath her cloak. Immediately, her opponent smiled again.

"Really? But we were having such fun…" she said. "Anyway, do you really think that would work?"

"You tell me," Sophia replied, getting ready to fire at point-blank range.

Cricket reacted almost immediately, stabbing the knife into a wooden panel on the wall, ready to catch the bolt in mid-air.

So she bashed her in the face with her fist instead, the woman only thinking to dodge at the last moment. It wasn't a full hit, Cricket's head jerking backwards in reflex, but Sophia had drawn blood as well now.

Then, she fired, and as Cricket's hands closed around the shaft of the bolt, her fingers broke the thin glass vial embedded into it, and the sedative, now free of its shell, splashed onto the woman's nearly bare torso.

"The fuck…" the woman said, not quite understanding what just happened. Sophia didn't dignify it with a response, instead opting to kick the woman's knees out from under her.

Her reflexes were still working, probably because the sedative hadn't penetrated her skin, but they weren't optimal, and while the attack was dodged, Cricket couldn't quite put her leg back on the ground correctly after jumping away. A quick side-sweep with Sophia's feet caused Cricket to dodge that, leading to both her legs being off the ground, and gravity did the rest.

"Like shooting fish in a barrel," Sophia remarked before thinking twice of it. After all, the saying implied that she'd done such a thing, and also that she couldn't directly hit the fish when she'd done so. Then again, like shooting fish on dry land was probably worse…

"Cricket! What's happening?" a voice, New Yorker from his accent, called out from around the corner, inside of the bank's vault.

That was the problem with quick fights. You shot for a few seconds, you stabbed at each other for a few more, and then, when you finally had the time to take a breather, it turned out that your opponent had allies.

Thinking quickly, Sophia dashed towards the source of the sound, taking a look through the opened door of the bank's vault. There, standing amidst several bars of gold, a few stacks of cash, a burning oil lamp, several ancient books, and what looked to be a priceless piece of scientific equipment, stood a shirtless man. He had a chiseled physique, but one that was ruined by the long and greasy blonde locks of hair on his head, the large tattoo on his arm, and copious amounts of unwashed chest-hair.

Surmising from the gunshots what had happened, the man didn't take the time to start a discussion. Instead, he simply grabbed a knife from his belt, threw it at Sophia's face, and started running after it.

She dodged almost effortlessly, before turning her attention to the door of the vault. Somehow, they'd gotten their hands on both the key and the code, but even with those, it only opened from the outside.

Sophia threw the door closed in the man's face, and took a few steps back, taking stock of the situation.

Was this their leader? The man responsible for their plans? He certainly didn't look like it. A partner in crime then? The one that had taken down the caravans responsible for the Sheriff's medicine? It was possible. In that case, he'd probably been planning to take advantage of the chaos to empty the bank's vault, blaming either the natives or the Undersiders afterwards. But when El Tigre hadn't shown up to try to defend the city, Slashing Cricket had gotten either curious or worried, and entered the town in order to figure out if the operation had been compromised. But how could she prove this? To both the villagers and the Starchasers?

Then, with the sound of a screeching ghost, the metal door of the vault before her started splitting apart, and through a small gap, Sophia could see the man inside, now turned into a whirling mass of blades and razor wires.

Because of course there was a third Cloak involved. And from the looks of it, this one was of the type that she couldn't outsmart. The type that, when you dropped a piano on them, would just get up and keep walking.

Brockton Gulch, Sophia thought, was one hell of a town.


	5. Chapter 5: Thrown to the wolves

**Chapter 5: Thrown to the Wolves**

Steel claws tore through the door of the vault, twisting through the metal until Sophia could see the metal beast in all its glory. It was about halfway between a large dog and a horse in size, and although its entire body was constantly twisting, turning and moving, it looked like it was modeled after a wolf.

"So, given your partners, I presume you're called The Poodle?" Sophia taunted. The beast roared, or at least, approximated a roar, before leaping at her.

Sophia responded in kind, dashing forward and shifting into her shadow-state, going straight through the wolf-thing, before placing a new cylinder in her trusty Remington and unleashing a hail of bullets at the beast.

The bullets ricochet, flying everywhere. Just about what she'd expected to happen, but knowing for certain was better than figuring out she could've just shot him after an hour of fighting. Not that that had ever happened…

Mentally, she went through her options. Depending on how this guy worked, there were a few things she could do. The most important of those, however, was running away.

Figuring out that Sophia had moved through him, the metal wolf turned around. Or rather, it's whirling mass shifted until the head-shaped mass was located at the side facing Sophia. This wasn't a man with the ability to turn into a metal wolf, she now knew. This was a man who used his ability to turn into a metal wolf. His true capabilities, however, included a far greater array of moves.

Turning around, Sophia ran for the table in the middle of the vault, grabbing the burning oil lamp still standing there, and throwing it at the quickly approaching shapechanger. It raised its paw, swatting the lamp out of the air, and it crashed against the floor, shattering, the flame extinguished.

The single lamp removed from play, the only remaining source of light was the soft, near-invisible glow coming in through some of the wooden planks elsewhere in the building. Shoddy workmanship meaning there were cracks in between where the sun could pierce through.

Hidden in the darkness, she ran on, dashing straight through the wall of the vault. It stalled her, slowing her down and making her feel almost as uncomfortable as Slashing Cricket's extra ability, but she managed to get through the metal and stone wall.

Looking around, it seemed like she now found herself in the banker's office. The desk contained several large stacks of papers, with overly elaborate paperweights on top of them, and a strange machine holding a piece of paper and several dozen small keys on it, each of them corresponding to one of the letters of the alphabet. She'd never seen anything similar to it, but it looked heavy. She grabbed it, shifting back to her shadow-state where the weight wouldn't overly bother her, and waited for her opponent to tear his way through the vault's wall as well. In the meantime, she looked around some more. A painting, a clock, a wooden chair and even a small window, but nothing she could use in a hand-to-hand fight. Annoying… if only she hadn't destroyed both tomahawks, she could've taken one of those, but that option was out as well.

What else? A local blacksmith perhaps? A gun store that held cannons for some reason? You never knew in places like these.

Something smashed into the wall Sophia just came through, and she could see cracks appearing. Apparently, Poodle was going for the "throw yourself at the wall multiple times in a row," strategy. Five seconds later, another loud crash made the cracks grow larger, and she could see metal hooks pierce through the wall.

Then, after another five seconds, the twisting metal beast crashed through, and Sophia threw the metal object at him, still in her shadow-state.

Halfway through the Poodle, it forcibly rematerialized, half-merging with it.

Any normal person would've been killed, having a large block of metal deposited in the middle of their body. Sadly, this guy's internals weren't quite normal either. The metal twisted around the device, until eventually, it was part of the man-beast. Did that mean that wood or rock would have worked? Probably not…

Slowly, the mass of metal changed until the torso of the man stuck out of the top, smiling.

"Nice try little negress, but I'm afraid it won't be enough," the man said with a crazed smile on his face, his four legs slowly walking forward.

"Right, of course," Sophia replied. "And you are going to hurt me… how exactly?"

"Like this," Poodle replied, metal shooting forwards out of his torso, straight through Sophia's heart.

Or rather, where her heart would've been if she hadn't turned back to shadows just before it hit.

Throwing herself backwards, through the wall to the outside, she turned back again, standing in the sunlight as Poodle followed through the wall. Then, instead of whistling for her horse and getting the hell out of here, she jumped into the building besides the bank as her opponent followed, smashing his way through walls. Quickly, Sophia established a pattern. Go through a wall, turn back to normal, wait until the Poodle almost hit her, then turn back into a shadow and go through another wall.

The first building was, apparently, some rich fucker's mini-mansion, which included a pool table. Seeing an opportunity, she grabbed one of the cues, switched states, and turned back to normal while it was inside of Poodle's body, turning him into a hedgehog. It didn't seem to hurt him, but it looked hilarious nonetheless.

The clue, she knew, was making this guy think he had a chance. As far as he knew, he couldn't hit her when she was in her shadow state, but she had to get out of her shadow state after a few seconds, which was the furthest from true. She supported herself on the air itself, and could even, with care, sleep in her shadow state.

Poodle tried to turn the wooden stick against her, using them as range extenders, but compared to some of the enemies Sophia had fought, the guy was slow and cumbersome. The only thing he really had going for him was versatility and endurance, and even then, it was the combination of armor and regeneration that was difficult to fight. She ducked beneath one strike, then jumped over the other by pulling her knees to her chest, making sure not to rely on her changed state overly much. After all, she couldn't let her enemy know just how useless his attempts were.

The second building they crashed through was a grocer's building, which was slightly more problematic. She dashed through the wall, as well as a rack filled with flour, sugar, and other such staples. When Poodle followed, he tore straight through the packaging, filling the entire building in a thick white mist, a mist that would make it more difficult for her to turn to normal. Thinking quickly, Sophia threw a few red tomatoes at the snow-hedgehog, which blendered them on impact, covering itself in dripping red liquid. Then, she turned back, flowing through another wall, this time not allowing the Baskerville Hound to take a swipe at her in between transformations..

Again, the man followed by smashing through the wall to the outside, and when he spotted Sophia breathing heavily, he slowed down, trying to savour the moment. Then, still leaning against the wall of the building behind her, Sophia turned to her shadow state, slowly falling through, and turning herself around in the middle of the wall.

Entering the inside of the building, she saw the Sheriff, one hand on her walking stick, the other holding her gun. Evidently, she'd tried to make her way to the fighting at the border of the town, but hadn't been able to make it out of her office. Standing up to the angry mob had taken a lot out of her, and her seeming strength had been an act.

"What? Identify yourself!" the woman shouted, pointing her elaborate fire-arm straight at Sophia's shadowy head. At once, she shifted back. Not just because she needed this woman's help, but also because she wasn't entirely certain her power would protect her from this weapon.

"We've got incoming," Sophia stated, stepping to the side as Poodle broke through the wall, long pool cue's sticking out of him, covered in white flour, and dripping with what looked a whole lot like blood on first sight.

To her credit, the Sheriff didn't flinch, and she didn't hesitate either. She simply aimed her pistol straight at the cloak's torso, and fired with an earsplitting sound.

The bullet, if you could even call it that, flew out of the barrel, leaving behind a glowing streak of green light in the air. Then, as it impacted the creature, the metal shattered at the moment of impact, scattering into the area.

Almost instinctively, Sophia changed states, while the hail of shrapnel impacted around them. For the Sheriff, most of it bounced off of the leather armour of her uniform, but one piece impacted the side of the woman's temple, drawing blood.

Their enemy however, looked like a shaved metal bear, slowly turning back into an exhausted, barechested thug. He was lying in the middle of the street, thrown back by the force of the Sheriff's weapon.

"I'm not entirely sure who you are," the Sheriff stated. "But you're sure as hell under arrest."

"Hrmpf," the man replied, coughing, while slowly standing up. Why was he so self-assured all of a sudden? "I thought you'd be dead by now, but it seems like you're more tenacious than I thought."

"I'm good at being tenacious," the Sheriff replied. "Now put your hands on your head and don't stand up."

"Do they even know? About the things you've done? Do they even know your name, Piggot?"

Piggot? Sophia thought. The Emily Piggot? The one that single-handedly took down the Goblin King himself? That… that most certainly explained the gun.

"They don't need to know," she said. "Now surrender, or I blow your head off."

"I'd like to see you-" his sentence was cut off by another shot, this one aimed at his neck. This time, his head turned into a combination of metal and red mist, and slowly but surely, his torso fell over.

"You, young lady, have some explaining to do," Piggot said to her with a tired look, right as the wind suddenly picked up, creating a cloud of dust that moved through the street.

"El Tigre…" Sophia said, just before the incoming cloud covered the two of them.

Piggot responded by putting her hand in front of her mouth, and motioning for Sophia to walk with her, further into the building, away from the hole in the wall and the flying dust.


	6. Chapter 6: Wounds Past and Present

**Chapter 6: Wounds Past and Present**

"You're Piggot?" She asked while the Sheriff was sitting down in her chair again. "The Piggot?"

"And you're Hess," Emily replied. "I have to say, your list of achievements is just as impressive as mine, and you're still walking about."

Sophia harrumphed, "Most of the stuff they say is fake, exaggerated for the sake of selling copies, either of newspapers, or of dime store novels.

"The price of fame, I presume," Piggot replied. "I've never had to deal with that kind of fame, disappearing after being mortally wounded tends to put a stop to any rumours."

"Lucky you," Sophia replied. Although, looking at the walking stick and the medicine that the woman relied upon, she had to admit that she prefered being famous. "Means you don't have to deal with people asking you about your apprentice."

"Apprentice?" Piggot asked, raising a single eyebrow. Sophia was jealous of that, as it was a skill she had been chasing for a while now.

"Apparently, some famous brit decided that I needed a little kid chasing me around, asking me to teach him all the time," Sophia replied. The books themselves had been… amusing. The real problem had been the stage production, not in the least because they'd casted a white girl with a British accent. Thinking about it, she realized that she'd forgotten about something during all the fighting."Shit, Mountains is still out there!"

"Mountains?" Emily asked, giving a repeat performance with her eyebrow.

"Little girl from the Starchasers, she was helping me catch up with the attack," Sophia replied, before putting her fingers in her mouth again, and whistling as loud as she could at the high frequency. Hopefully, Jumper would hear it, and escort the girl towards her once the dust-storm was gone.

"You've met with the savages then?" Piggot asked.

"I did. Their chieftain, a man by the name of Walks with Trees, has been incapacitated in much the same way you have been, and their new warchief has the exact same tattoo as El Tigre and our dead friend back there have," Sophia explained. "Mountains then told me about the incoming attack, and we raced back here. When I noticed that neither Cricket nor Tigre were fighting, I figured they'd go to the biggest target in town."

"The bank then..." Emily said."They're only after our money, and this entire conflict was set up beforehand."

"It is. I found Slashing Cricket and mister Poodle over there in the bank's vault. I managed to sedate the Cricket, but mister doggy proved problematic, so I figured I'd do you a favor and lead him here."

"Lupus," Piggot replied. "I wasn't sure at first, but he fits the description. He's not as well-known a bandit as you'd think he'd be, something that can probably be chalked up to him killing all the witnesses whenever he used his power."

"I'm guessing he's the one that stole your medicine then?" Sophia asked. If so, she'd been lucky, taking the short route through the wastelands. If she'd run into the guy in the middle of the road, he would have been a lot more troublesome..

"Presumably," Emily said, opening a small drawer on her desk, and pulling out a few medical supplies. "Can you help me out with this?" She continued, pointing at the wound on her temple.

"Sure," Sophia replied, taking the disinfectant and bandage from the bundle of supplies. "So, what's our next step?"

"I arrest El Tigre and his friends, and you return to the Starchasers, try to see if you can help out their chieftain. This entire conflict is a sham, even those savages should be able to see that."

"I'm not sure if it's that simple," Sophia replied. While putting alcohol on Piggot's wound, to her credit, the woman didn't flinch, like she was too tough to even feel the sting. "The Chieftain's brother was killed in a previous altercation. Knowing the natives, the can't just stop right now, the tribesmen want their vengeance."

"And if we give them the heads of those responsible?" the woman asked.

"That might work," Sophia replied. "But we'd have to convince the Chief that the townspeople had nothing to do with this, which will be difficult with the state he's in."

"Which is?"

"He's been trying the herbs and spices, more so than usual. He likes the ceremonial pipe quite a bit," Sophia replied, putting the finishing touches on the bandage.

"That… might be problematic," Piggot replied. From the look of her, as well as her physical condition, she wasn't the type to drink alcohol, let alone use anything stronger. "Well, at least the dust-storm seems to have stopped."

"Meaning El Tigre is done with whatever his plans were," Sophia replied. "Not exactly a good thing."

"No, but we'll get to that when we'll get to that," Piggot said, and she slowly stood up from her desk, leaning on her wooden staff while they walked towards the room with the hole in the wall. It had been filled up with sand, a small layer of it covering everything, from the chairs to the book-case in the corner. To make matters worse, when Sophia looked outside, she saw that Lupus's corpse was missing, the only evidence of his presence scattered metal shards half-hidden beneath the sand.

"Shit!" Sophia shouted out, and she ran outside, scanning the area without waiting for the sheriff to catch up. THe street was empty, old cart-tracks covered in a thick layer of sand, and any hoofprints had all but disappeared. To make matters worse, all of the horses in front of the bank were gone, including her own Jumper.

"Jumper!" she shouted, and she could feel herself start to panick. She wasn't the most social of people. In fact, she could barely stand most anyone for more than a couple of minutes. Jumper though… she wasn't quite sure what she would do without Jumper. She'd had him since he was a foal, following her around wherever she went on the ranch, the only point of light when her new father made her life miserable.

"JUMPER!" she yelled again, and the hollow tones of her voice echoed through the empty streets, bouncing off of every wall. With the women and children in hiding, and the able-bodied men having stopped taking potshots, all she could hear was silence and her own voice. Whatever had happened, Jumper wasn't responding to her calls anymore. She fell to her knees, tears forming in her eyes as she could almost hear the beating of his hoofs.

"Jumper! Jolly Jumper where are you!" she shouted again, frantically looking around, trying to find her friend. She shouldn't have left him behind, not with monsters like these around. She should've told him to run, to get himself and Mountains away from the battle… Why did she allow him to stay? Why had she been so foolish?

Again, she heard his hoofbeats, the metal of his horseshoe beating against wood. It hurt, missing him, and hallucinating his presence only made it worse.

As evidence of her final slide into insanity, she also heard his neighing…

Frantically, she ran towards the direction she thought she'd heard him, and then, tucked away in an alley between two buildings, she spotted him. He was hurt, his coat of fur ragged, and the tips of his ears were bleeding from the dust, but he was safe. Although… why hadn't he come for her?

"Jumper, what happened?" she asked, walking towards him. He was standing strangely, like he was protecting something. "What's wrong buddy?" she asked, speaking softly, and as she came closer, she saw that he'd been protecting Dances with Mountains, the young girl lodged between Jumper and the wall. The girl was crying, scared, and bleeding profusely from a wound to her chest.

"What happened?" Sophia repeated, this time asking the young girl instead of the horse.

"I'm not sure," she replied, her voice strained. "After the shots stopped, there was a sudden dust-storm. I tried to get to cover, but some people were walking through the storm. One of them pushed me down with some sort of weapon…" she continued, trying to stay strong through the pain. Shooing Jumper to the side, Sophia squatted besides the girl, inspecting the wound. Something sharp and heavy had pushed against her, but the intent probably hadn't been to kill. Lupus, shoving her to the ground on his way to the vault, and his native ally. The blood was slowly but surely dying her dress red,, and her face was so pale she almost looked like a white girl.

"Yeah, that's going to need treatment," Sophia said.. "We'd better get you back to your village as soon as possible. We have to warn them about Cricket."

"What do you mean?" the girl asked, confusion bleeding through the fear and pain on her face. Sophia had almost forgotten that she'd never really explained everything to the girl, and the blood loss and pain probably didn't help.

"The man that hurt you was working together with your new 've been playing your tribe and the town against each other, using the chaos to collect treasures and riches, while you all blamed each other."

"So, if they robbed the bank…" the girl said, gasping for air in between words."Then... will they try and... steal our treasures?"

"Fuck!" Sophia exclaimed. Of course, the bank wasn't the only place with valuables. The Starchasers had a collection of valuable artefacts and tools that would sell for great amounts of money on the market. Given how badly her arrival had disturbed their plans, and their sound defeat in this altercation, it was likely that they would be rushing through their plan right now. Which meant that, instead of mock-fighting…

"C'mon, let's get you to the sheriff's office," Sophia said, picking up the girl in her arms, trying not to disturb the wound too much. "She'll have some sorely needed medical supplies, and maybe something for the pain."

"I'm not a little kid," the little kid replied, steeling herself and trying to put her feet on the ground, pretending that she could walk. Sophia ignored it, instead making long strides towards the sheriff's new door. "I can take care of myself, you need to go," the girl continued.

Sophia thought about it. Dropping the girl, mounting Jumper, and racing towards the tribe's location would save her half a minute at best, which wasn't worth the amount of shit she'd have to deal with if Mountains died on her watch.

Jumper followed the two of them, his head approaching Sophia's shoulder from behind, nuzzling the side of her face. He was happy to see her.

"You did well Jumper," Sophia said. "Just one more ride and we're done for the day."

Jumper snorted in protest, having already crossed half a wasteland, traveled to the tribes' encampment, and travelled back, but he'd do what she asked of him.

"That the girl?" the sheriff asked as Sophia approached, still standing on the edge of her new door.

"She's hurt," Sophia replied. "Can you take care of her?"

"Of course," the woman calmly stated. "Put her on the desk."

Sophia obliged through Mountains' quiet protests, then turned back to the sheriff.

"I'm going to go put a stop to this, and hopefully get you guys some medicine from Walks with Trees. Can you take over here?" she said, not waiting for an answer while she swiftly walked back to her horse.

"I will," the older woman replied, taking a look at the wounded girl on the desk first.

"C'mon Jumper," Sophia said, mounting her steed, and holding a hand out for him to nuzzle while they were riding.

Feeling her urgency, Jumper ran at an amazing speed, until they arrived at the barricade behind which Tigre's men had been fighting.

Most of them were hurt, some even dying. Poisoned arrows, she surmised. It would allow for maximum mayhem. The townspeople would kill the natives, and then they would die slowly afterwards.

The few that weren't hurt were still at the barricades, taking potshots at the riders in the distance.

"Hold your fire!" Sophia shouted, and the men turned around in fear as Jumper galloped straight for them. "There's no need to fight here! You're both being set up!"

She wasn't quite sure if they believed her or not, but the sight of the galloping horse, as well as what they'd seen of Sophia's skills with a gun, was enough to convince them to stop firing at the attacking tribespeople.

Then, Jumper did what he was named for, leaping over the barricades in a single bound, and Sophia made her way to the natives. Some of them held out their bows, but it didn't seem like they were up for a fight. Many of them were bleeding, and about half of them no longer had their mounts, the poor animals lying dead on the ground.

"Stalker of Shadows, what are you doing here?" one of them asked. Someone she'd met in a previous meeting with the Starchasers? Someone who knew her by reputation? "Are you with the white-skins in the town?"

"I'm impartial," she replied. "You're being set-up, Slashing Cricket was working together with the head of the town militia, and they just robbed the Gulch's bank."  
"Then we are rich!" one of the mounted archers said jubilantly.

"No, they're rich. You, are being suckered, even the ones working together with them."

That statement raised some eyebrows, and got her their attention. "You know who you are, and if you really think they're going to share the loot with twenty people or so, when they could split it between the three of them, then you are fools as well as thieves," she stated. She thought she saw some of them react to that, but couldn't be sure about which of these people were in the know, and which weren't.

"What, exactly, are you implying?" the warrior that had recognized her asked. She remembered him vaguely. Good with a tomahawk if she was correct.

"That some of you are here for more than just defending your tribe," Sophia replied.

"That… is a grave accusation," he continued, confused about what she was saying. Presumably, he was torn between her reputation and his loyalty to the people of his tribe.

"It is, but I don't have the time to convince you. You know me, you know my reputation. Follow me back to your tribe, and we'll find a trio of criminals ready to steal your treasures and artefacts."

"One of them is your old leader," she explained." She's joined by the cloak in charge of the defense of this town, as well as a metal wolf-man," she continued, and as she did so, she raced forward on Jumper, past the group of horse archers, straight back towards their encampment. She didn't have Mountains with her, so she wasn't as fast as the second time she'd made this trip today, but Jumper felt her urgency, and made sure to give it his all. 


	7. Chapter 7: Menagerie a Trois

**Chapter 7: Menagerie à trois**

"So, Shadow, mind telling me what's going on here?" the warrior, Qaleta, asked.

"Like I said, you're being played," she replied. "Slashing Cricket and El Tigre are working together towards some sort of goal. It's why she kept finding more supplies for Walks with Trees' pipe."

"That does explain some of our recent troubles," he said. He was riding right besides her, but his horse was evidently not as fast as Jumper, and while Sophia's mount was running at a pace he could keep up for a while, Qaleta's mare was sprinting to keep up.

"It does, but there's more going on," Sophia replied. "They're working with a third person, one that seems to be managing the operation behind the scenes. A guy called Lupus, capable of turning into a metal wolf."

That shocked the native warrior ever so slightly, as animal-themed powers tended to do among some of the tribes. Sophia thought it probably had something to do with their religions, although she wasn't entirely sure of the specific details, and they differed between tribes as well.

"And what are they after?" Qaleta asked, having recovered from hearing that he would have to fight an animal-man.

"I'm not sure," she said, turning around slightly to keep talking to him. The man's poor steed was quickly running out of breath, and she had to twist her neck all the way around to look at him. "But I get the feeling it might be more than just wealth that they're after. Or at least, more than what they're able to steal here."

"So they're looking for something specific? One of our artefacts?" he asked.

"Possibly, although I have no idea what they're looking for, and their main target could also have been something from the bank vault. Or perhaps they're looking for information of some sort, some kind of map perhaps."

"If it is mysterious information they are looking for, then the chieftain has collected enough of that," the man replied. "But I don't see why they wouldn't have taken them yet."

"Because until I caught them, they were going for stealth," Sophia replied. "They're panicking, trying to salvage what they can of their plan."

"Then it is good that we are making haste," the young man replied, a grim but determined look appearing on his face. "Because those who panic rarely care for the safety of the innocent."

At that, Sophia spurred Jumper on again, asking him to give it his all for the last few miles. In the distance, she could just barely see smoke rising above the hilltops, coming from the tribe's camp. From the look of it, she was pretty sure that these weren't intentional smoke signals, or at least not those of the traditional kind.

Leaving her small escort of native warriors behind in a trail of dust kicked up by Jumper, she crested the final hill. Before her, she saw the Starchasers' camp, but the rustic calm of earlier that day was gone, having been replaced by burning tipis and screaming women. A good thing, she thought, that there were only three enemies here, and that they were busy going after their goal. This situation could have been a lot worse if the town's militia had joined the attack.

In the middle of the camp, she spotted her targets. Three Cloaks, fighting a massive brown-green construct that was about as tall as a two-floored building. Long, bark-covered legs supported a tiny torso, and even longer arms sprouted from that, consisting of twisted vines that it threw around in sweeping attacks. In the middle, she saw a single glowing eye.

It was one of the chieftain's creations, born of blood and sap, boiled up in one of his vats. From the fact that there was just one of them, she surmised that it must have been an automated defense system, designed to kill any intruders that disturbed it. That was worrying, because it meant that the chieftain wasn't able to set his real armies on the cloaks right now.

Looking at them from a distance, It was clear that the trio worked together as a team, Lupus was taking the brunt of the attack, blocking the creature's strikes with his metal bulk, while Cricket danced around to strike from the back, and Tigre sliced at the thing's torso from a distance, hitting the areas that were too high up for the other two.

Despite their recent defeats, most of them weren't overly incapacitated. She thought Cricket was perhaps a little bit more sluggish than before, and she was using a pair of knives instead of her axes, but she was still graceful enough to comfortably dance around her enemy. El Tigre had largely recovered from his leg wound, and although he slightly favored his other leg, he seemed to be doing okay. The man that seemed to be their leader however, was still showing his battle scars. Lupus was about half the size he had previously been. Apparently, it wasn't all that easy for him to regrow the metal once it had been removed from his body.

"Jump!" she shouted, and Jumper kicked off against the ground, jumping upwards as high as he could. Then, at the top of their arc through the sky, Sophia jumped off and instantly shifted to her shadow-state. The manoeuvre launched her into the air with a large amount of speed, from where she slowly started floating downwards while her forward momentum carried her through the sky, giving her an aerial view of the village, and the perfect sniping spot, at least temporarily. She grabbed her crossbow, and took aim, trying to figure out the precise angle to make the shot line up.

The long arm of the beast swung out, sweeping along the floor, and while El Tigre dodged it, Lupus simply stood in place, taking the opportunity to hack away at the arm, while Cricket tried to pierce its knee from behind. A useless move, because this thing did not have any biology that was remotely human, but apparently, they didn't know that.

Then, as he landed, El Tigre struck out with a claw of compressed air, straight at the beast's torso. The attacks were broad, rather than powerful. He was angry, and she could use that.

She waited, until the beast attacked again. Like clockwork, Tigre used his mobility to dodge, and Sophia loosed a bolt, aiming just to the side of Cricket. It was going to miss, so Cricket ignored it, but as Tigre fired his attack, the sides of the blast moved the bolt in its path, straight into Cricket's leg. She cried out in pain, too late to react, and Sophia smiled at that.

She looked at the ground, and noticed that she wouldn't be able to fire another shot before reaching the ground, so she dropped into a ball, bracing herself for the impact.

As she hit the ground, she felt the shockwave through her shadowform. Greatly dampened and not at all harmful, but still there. Then, she turned back to normal and looked at the fighting again.

Cricket had retreated into a tipi, but El Tigre and Lupus were still active, with Lupus having torn himself into hanging from the creature's arm.

She'd really have to figure out a way to deal with that guy.

Running towards the fight, she grabbed her gun and checked her bullets. Like he'd shown before, Tigre wasn't an easy target, but hopefully, she wouldn't have to fight the both of them at once. Still, this had gone on for long enough, and given what had happened in the town, she wasn't above shooting to maim right now.

Standing still, she took aim, and fired, aiming for the aerokineticist's calf, and as the bullet soared through the air, the man turned around, creating a shield of wind in front of him that blocked her bullet.

It didn't matter though, she thought, as she fired again, and again, and again, and again, and one final time, her opponent blocking every shot with his blasts of wind.

She remembered, early on in her career, wondering why they never figured it out. Experience though, told her that most people were stupid. She knew she couldn't hit him like this, and he knew she couldn't hit him like this, but for some reason, they were never smart enough to figure out that she knew she couldn't hit them like this, instead taking pride in their invulnerability while they were being distracted.

Sophia reloaded, swapping out the cylinder in her revolver for another that already contained six new bullets, and repeated her performance, when during the fourth shot, the man was struck from behind by the tree-branch that was the monster's other arm, and thrown to the ground.

"Too easy," Sophia joked, slowly walking forwards as Lupus dropped from his perch on the arm of the Ent, the wood there now largely torn away.

"You're tenacious," Lupus said, turning back into his human form. Or rather, his human-looking form. There was probably quite a bit of metal right beneath the skin.

"As are you," she replied, twirling her gun between her fingers. "But shouldn't you be looking at something else?"

The monster struck at the man with its wounded arm, but Lupus was faster, his arm turning into a buzzing saw before the beast could stop its attack, and shearing straight through the weakened material.

If it could cry out, it would have, and it stepped away from Lupus in fear.

"So, you want to go at it again?" the man asked.

"That wouldn't be very useful, would it now?" she replied. "The two of us, both incapable of harming the other, delivering a repeat performance?"

"That's true," Lupus said. "So I propose a different solution."

"What, you're going to turn yourself in?" she asked.

"No, I'm going to grab my friends and leave this place, and you're going to let me walk away," he said with a confident grin on his face.

"Now why would I do that?" Sophia asked, her fingers sliding bullets into the empty holes in the cylinder.

"Cause while that thing's afraid of me, it's not afraid of innocents," he smiled, nodding towards the monster, which was running towards one of the tipis. "It was fun playing with you, but I have somewhere to be," he continued, walking towards his downed friend.

Sophia, knowing when she was beaten, let him, running after the beast.

She shot, hitting it in the back, but its bulky flesh simply absorbed the bullets. It did, however, made the beast turn around.

Sophia shouted wildly, drawing its attention, and loosed another six bullets into its 'eye', which she knew it wasn't. Chieftain Walks with Trees might be an idiot, but he wasn't that big of an idiot. He would've used some other mechanism to allow the monster to observe its environment, placing a heavily armored eye at the center to draw the attention, and given the way he usually worked, it was probably light-sensitivity on the skin.

"Hey, you big fat tree!" she yelled. "I don't even know if trees can get fat, but you sure are!"

It enraged the beast, or rather, it allowed the beast to track her, and start attacking.

She dashed backwards, firing as many bullets into the thing as she could, aiming for what she thought were weak spots. Unlike with Lupus, bullets could hurt this thing. They just didn't hurt it enough to put it down.

They did, however, make sure that the beast realized who it had to chase, and as it changed patterns into an outright dash for her, Sophia turned around and dropped the pretense of trying to shoot it, instead running towards a tipi she hoped was empty.

As she dashed through the entrance, she looked around to make sure no-one was there, and noticed an old woman, dazing away in what seemed to be the native variant of a rocking chair. She ran for her, threw the hag over her shoulder, and ran on before she could protest, reaching the other side of the tipi just as the monster hit the entrance. Then, she grabbed a knife from her boot, slashed a quick exit into the tent, and ran through it just as the beast barged in and had the tipi crash on top of it.

Shoving the old woman to safety, she turned around, fired a few shots, and yelled again.

"Yo momma so fat, people think she's a baobab!" she taunted, knowing that no-one within earshot would be able to appreciate the reference, and the beast, now covered in the cloth of the tent, turned in her direction, running straight for her.

Continuing her taunts, she positioned herself in front of another tipi, this one set on fire by the chaos in the camp. Hopefully, it would no longer be able to notice the fire.

Sadly, that same fire meant it would be too dangerou for her to go in there, she'd have to hope the beast was stupid enough.

Sophia clicked her last cylinder in her gun, and fired her final shots as the beast once again started charging. Then, just as it reached her, she turned to her shadow state as the monster went straight through her, crashing into the burning tipi, and cooking itself alive.

For the first time in a while, Sophia breathed out, no longer in a hurry. Finally, she was done here.

She crashed down on her ass, feeling the softness of the grass beneath her, and took a moment to rest, and then, just as she was about to close her eyes for a second, the beast turned around, and roared once more, both the cloth and most of its wood burned away.

Well fuck, she thought, as a smoldering ashen skeleton made its way towards her. It struck out, the much smaller arm moving at a much faster rate, and instead of dodging it, she had to use her shadow state, the fire still on the arm singing her gaseous form.

"Fuck!" she yelled in agony while turning back to her normal form. She could almost hear her skin sizzling beneath her clothes, although she knew it wasn't that bad yet. She would recover, but she couldn't take a lot of attacks like that. Why did she have to be so smart to put the thing on fire? Of course Trees had designed a counter to that vulnerability.

The monster turned to her, and she was just about out of tricks and ideas. In desperation, she reached for her secret ladies' compartment for her holdout gun, placing another shot in the center of the burning husk, but it did nothing. It attacked with its second strike, and again, Sophia was slightly too late to dodge, the burning wood singing her body and costume even though she was in her shadow state.

She crashed down to the ground in pain, just as the beast realized her weakness. It got ready to crush her, not with a sweep of its arm, but simply by crashing on top of her.

Sophia closed her eyes, her life flashing before her eyes before she realized she still had another trick up her sleeve, this time literally. Touching her shoulder with her left arm, she triggered the mechanism that loosened the knife, which fell into her right hand. Then, the held it in front of her like a spear, and hoped that it would impale the monster before it killed her.

Then, almost out of nowhere, a thrown tomahawk entered into its chest, and as the metal made contact with the wood, it paralyzed itself, slowly withering away.

"You alright?" the warrior asked, looking down at her with a smile on his face.

"Yeah, I think so," Sophia replied. "What happened?"

"Special tomahawk, for whenever the chieftain's creations malfunction," he smiled. "Sorry I'm late though, my horse couldn't keep up, especially not with the way you launched yourself in the air back there."

"Doesn't matter," she replied as she sat back up. In fact, she preferred this way. If there was anything she disliked, it was people interfering with a good fight when she hadn't planned for it. "But thank you anyway."

"No problem," he nodded.

"Could you do me a favor?" she asked. "Dances with Mountains got hurt. She's at the sheriff's office in town, and she's going to need some of the chieftain's special medicine, much like the rest of the people that got wounded in the fighting. You mind grabbing some for me?"

"Not at all," he replied, nodding with a smile on his face.

"Good", Sophia thought. The girl had been useful, and she had potential, it would be a shame if she died right now.


	8. Chapter 8: To the winner go the spoils

**Chapter 8: To the winner go the spoils**

Sophia woke at the crack of dawn, with the first ray of sunlight touching her face. She moaned, protesting against herself that she didn't want to stand up yet. Her blanket was warm, the mattress was soft, and her muscles still ached. But, she knew that, if she didn't get up now, she wouldn't do so for another hour or five, and she needed to leave.

She forced herself out of her bed, quickly putting on a shirt, and made her way to the small make-up table.

Thinking of her mother, she had a short, private, chuckle. She'd always been disappointed that Sophia wasn't the type to spend hours making herself pretty, but recently, she'd found a better use for this type of equipment. The mirror, the table, and the plentiful light, meant that it was the perfect place to clean her guns.

She went through her equipment. Her pistol, her spare cylinders, her hold-out gun, even her crossbow, methodically cleaning every part, inspecting it for the damage of everyday wear and tear, then putting it back together again. It felt good, helped her center herself. Yesterday had been quite busy, and she could feel the ache in her muscles, as well as the cut on her cheek, and the low-level burns in her chest. The chieftain's medicines could be said to work miracles, but they were nothing compared to what the Panacea could do.

Luckily, the sound of partying in the saloon below her had died down, both tribesmen and townspeople having fallen asleep after a long night of drunken revelling. Instead, all she could hear was a softly playing piano, and the murmuring of a few people. Sound carried through the saloon, but not well enough that she could hear what they were saying, which suited her just fine.

Done with her equipment, she grabbed her clothes, putting on her duster, her boots and her cloak, and walked towards the balcony.

Looking out over the streets, she saw drunk men sleeping against the walls, people who had been fighting just yesterday sitting arm in arm.

She hadn't been able to take down the men responsible, but she had to admit that everything had been solved quite well. Walks with Trees's medicine had been a great boon to the townspeople, and most everyone was simply happy that the thugs were gone, and the conflict was over.

Directly below her, she could see the horses, still standing in front of the Saloon, drinking water and chewing on hay. Jumper was there, standing right next to Qaleta's mare, and the two of them looked happy together. She felt bad for him, that he'd have to leave her after a single day, but from now on, people here would start cheering her on. Try to talk to her, offer her drinks, look at her when she was walking through the streets. Not something she liked. People were bad at the best of times, and they were worse when they thought you were amazing.

She judged the distance down and checked that her pack was in place. She'd miss out on her payment for the delivery, but she could go without for a while, supplies weren't that hard to come by for someone with her skillset.

"Already leaving, superhero?" the voice of a nightingale called out. Sophia turned around, and saw Emma standing at the entrance, seductively leaning against the door-frame. She wore a white dress that, in a different context, Sophia would have labeled a nightgown, and her luxurious scarlet hair was down, long curls cascading down her back.

"I told you, I'm a drifter, I don't stay in one place for long," Sophia replied, trying to tear her eyes away from the young woman.

"I get that, I really do," she replied, slowly walking towards Sophia, her hips swaying with every step. "I just wanted to ask, are you sure your drifting can't wait another hour or so?"

Sophia stood still, staring at the approaching redhead, looking her in the eyes, and drowning in Emma's pale green orbs.

"I guess it can," she replied, a soft smile on her lips.


End file.
